COVID-19 has broadly impacted the world. If you want, you can use this space to describe how COVID-19 has impacted your preparation for the application to dental school up to this point. Each program will determine how a response to this question will be considered as part of the admissions process.
Hi, I need help with my applications. I’m mentally blocked when it comes to the personal statement portion of the questions below:
Personal Statement (max: 4500 characters with spaces)
The response you enter below will appear in your application exactly as you type it. Using all capital letters or not capitalizing properly does not present a professional image to your application. Additionally, your Personal Statement is shared with all programs you apply to, so do not personalize it for a specific dental school.
Question: Please explain why you want to pursue a dental career.
As well as, please review my other papers. I need a good edit for them, and If you accept it I will provide you further info about me to create the personal statement. Do not go over the character count as the website does not allow anything above the max characters in the application process.
DO NOT USE ANY AI’s!!! their system will detect it and it will destroy my chances
Requirements:
COVID-19 Impact
Question: (max: 2500 characters with spaces) = 833 characters with space per section!
COVID-19 has broadly impacted the world. If you want, you can use this space to describe how COVID-19 has impacted your preparation for the application to dental school up to this point. Each program will determine how a response to this question will be considered as part of the admissions process. You might consider these questions as you formulate your response:
Question 1:
Academic: Did your school move to offering only online coursework? Did you have to leave an academic program? Were the grades for your coursework, especially prerequisites, affected? Was your Dental Admission Test (DAT) exam cancelled or delayed? Did you lose the ability to interact with professors or advisors? (833 characters with space)
Answer:
During COVID-19, I began attending the University of California, Santa Barbara, for my junior year. I got accepted to do a bachelor’s degree in physics then. During that year, when COVID was scary, my school moved to an online platform where many professors had never done it before. The workload of online courses was rough due to the lack of in-person interaction with professors. Unfortunately, due to the online platform not being taught well, I had to leave my program in physics and move to earth science. The grades for my pre-requisite were highly affected by the virus. Some of my classes had to be a pass or no pass due to the platform changes, and the university thought it was necessary for most types. Also, the Dental Admission Test (DAT) exam wasn’t available in my area for a long time. I even lost the ability to interact with professors and advisors to create a connection.
Question 2:
Professional: Was your job, paid or volunteer, affected? Did you lose a job or seek new opportunities? Was your shadowing experience shortened or modified? Were your financial responsibilities shifted or increased? (833 characters with space)
Answer:
My job in the pharmacy was affected due to the virus. The pharmacy had an overload of patients coming in with many concerns for safety and survivability due to their conditions. Many of my patients were very scared, and I was as well because they had a lot of health conditions where the virus could spread around. I did not lose my job, but I had to lower my hours to focus on school, and transitioning to online was a big scary step for me, especially courses that were more difficult online than in person. Many dentists near my area wouldn’t allow anyone to shadow or even volunteer to get those hours. It caused me to lose a lot of time that I wanted to volunteer and even seek out a dental job. My financial responsibilities increased as my parents had to be at home due to their jobs closing down because of the virus, and I had to pay all their bills and everything else to aid them, which caused some of my course grades to decline due to the amount of stress I had to deal with day to day.
Question 3:
Personal: Did you have to move out of a house or dorm? Were you impacted by travel out of the country? Did you seek out volunteer opportunities that arose from the crisis? Did you help family members who were affected? (833 characters with space)
Answer:
When I got accepted to the university, I was about to move out of the house and get into my new school apartment, but due to the virus spreading, I had to stay home for a year and a half while taking courses. I didn’t want to or have a reason to travel outside the country, so I didn’t partake in such events. I did seek out volunteering opportunities during the crisis. I donated blood, helped people experiencing homelessness in soup kitchens, and cleaned the beach. I did these whenever I had a free day to do so. I helped my parents financially and had to take my grandparents to their doctors because they feared it. I did all this during COVID-19 because I enjoy helping people as much as possible and will do anything to aid people in need or distress.
Disadvantaged Consideration
Question:
Should you be considered a disadvantaged applicant? Refer specifically to social, economic, and or educational factors when making a determination. Reference the for disadvantaged background. (max: 4500 characters with spaces)
NIH criteria:
Disadvantaged Background
An individual is considered to be from a disadvantaged background if he or she meets two or more of the following criteria:
Were or currently are homeless, as defined by the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act (Definition: ); (never)
Were or currently are in the foster care system, as defined by the Administration for Children and Families (Definition: ); (never)
Were eligible for the Federal Free and Reduced Lunch Program for two or more years (Definition: ); (yes)
Have/had no parents or legal guardians who completed a bachelor’s degree (see ); (yes)
Were or currently are eligible for Federal Pell grants (Definition: ); (yes)
Received support from the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) as a parent or child (Definition: ).(never)
Grew up in one of the following areas: a) a U.S. rural area, as designated by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Rural Health Grants Eligibility Analyzer (), or b) a (qualifying zipcodes are included in the file). Only one of the two possibilities in #7 can be used as a criterion for the disadvantaged background definition. (never)
Answer:
I should be considered a disadvantaged applicant due to my struggles through life to reach this point. I am an immigrant from Iraq and have lived through many life struggles that almost killed me due to the environment I grew up in. Some of these disadvantages include social, economic, and or educational factors.
Growing up in Iraq alone was a struggle. My family barely had enough in Iraq to feed me and my siblings. My parents couldn’t finish their bachelor’s degree due to traveling to school and having a potentially life-threatening trip due to the terrorism and killings they had heard of on their way to the university. My dad worked every day of the week for over 10 hours per day to be a provider with scarcely any income to support us. In Iraq, my mom couldn’t work as a woman. Working is hazardous and scary, especially with potential kidnappings and deaths spreading around due to bad people causing them. In Baghdad, I lived through multiple car bombings and even threatened not to attend school and had to flee up north. I grew up living at my grandparents’ house throughout my life there because my parents did not have enough money to live all on our own. In Iraq, I lived through war income scares environments and even fled north of Iraq in a small village called Alqosh due to being catholic for the rest of my life before coming to the United States of America. Alqosh is a tiny village close to the mountains and a very rural area with less than 500 individuals living in a peaceful environment due to their military and support from the Assyrian army protecting us. Running from terrorism was barely seen compared to living in the central city of Baghdad.
When we came to the United States of America, we barely had enough money to survive. I grew up in a small apartment with the Aid of the church, which set up the place, guiding and teaching us the culture changes. During our first couple of years, where we struggled financially, we had Aid from governmental services such as Medicaid, Food stamps, and welfare. These resources America provided for us were crucial for our survival in the States. We are very grateful for these outstanding services that we had when we got here. These services helped us a lot in sorting through the changes and gave us hope to survive in America. During those years, my parents started finding jobs and working. My parents work very hard and over 40 hours weekly to support us. My mom works two jobs, and my dad works one daily. My parents were my most significant influence in understanding our financial struggles. They always pushed us to do well in school and never gave up on reaching our goals. These struggles and observations I lived with were my insights into understanding the world and its cruelty.
In the United States, I had reduced to free lunches from 6th to 12th grade. My family couldn’t afford my lunches, and the only way for me to have them, especially being in school all day, was to sign me up through the school’s wavers. In the first few weeks in America, my parents couldn’t give me money to buy food at school. My teachers were concerned about my well-being due to my struggles concentrating in class. The teacher did his best to speak to my parents about our language barriers and why I needed the waiver. My parents agreed to it, and ever since, I have reduced lunches during school, which immensely helped me because I didn’t want to faint in class.
Regarding college, I signed up with FAFSA for grants and loans. FAFSA was one of the most crucial components in my education regarding opening opportunities, especially my long-life struggle with income. FAFSA was one of the most incredible door-opening opportunities to get into college and continue working hard in my education. Those grants provided me with additional income that helped me help my family with rent, books, as well as buying food for survival. I am very grateful for these opportunities the United States has provided me.
Due to multiple reasons that I faced growing up. These were the most important factors of why I believe I should be a disadvantaged consideration in this application. I am hard working both educationally and maintain a job to support both me and my family.
Education Interruption
Question:
Has your education ever been interrupted or affected adversely for reasons other than deficiencies in conduct, academic performance, or COVID-19? (max: 1,000 characters with spaces)
Answer:
My education has been interrupted a lot. I don’t particularly appreciate blaming these situations for my shortcomings in terms of my performance. These are mainly due to my financial crisis, which led to overworking, seeking mental health to treat my ADHD, which I was recently diagnosed with, and helping my parents with the day-to-day aspects of their lives.
My financial situation was out of my control, especially when living in a low-income family. I had to work, and it wasn’t a choice. Working in the pharmacy as a pharmacy technician is very stressful, causing me to become mentally drained throughout the day, which interrupted a lot of my school work and performance.
I have been diagnosed recently with ADHD, which affected me significantly in my senior year of college. It caused me to have trouble focusing and become very hyperactive in classes. I would always get easily distracted in classes.
Helping my parents out had been one of the most significant impacts of my life. I had to overwork at my job to sustain living and pay their bills and rent. As they age, it has been challenging to maintain their work-life balance when it becomes more work for them than spending time with family.
Manual Dexterity
Question:
Describe any activities requiring manual dexterity (e.g. activities requiring hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills such as cross-stitching, sewing, art, crafts, playing musical instruments, auto repair, etc.) at which you are proficient. Be sure to enter your response as a narrative list; do not use bullet points. (max: 600 characters with spaces)
Answer:
My favorite manual dexterities are crafting, such as building origamis of animals; visual arts, such as oil paintings and making portraits of people; model building, such as model cars and planes; cooking and baking, such as cooking three-course meals and precise baking using math for measurements and creations, puzzles and brain teasers such as 3D puzzles and Sudoku, card games such as poker chip tricks, mechanical repairs such as bike repairs, paper cutting such as creating interactive designs, and kite making and flying such as building a kite by using a paper and wooden straws from plants.
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